Radio Lento podcast

185 Onshore breeze on Chesil beach (sleep safe and in hi-def sound)

This onshore breeze. A pleasant one, will not cuff too much against your ears. It'll flutter. Like a dark brown feather quivers, on a current of moving air.

It'll be steady too. As a pleasant onshore breeze is. As the horizon is, from whence it came. Rising, at its centre. And falling away, almost imperceptibly either side of its farthest edges. A constant. And a consistent presence that lets your skin know just how endless the space is. Out there.  

A strange thing though. Worth noting. Worth remembering, for next time. How an onshore breeze is unchanging. While it comes from out there, from the wide open endless sea, and while it lands upon the shore just as the incoming waves do, it does no advancing or receding, like the waves do. No hauling back of the shingle. No pulling away making you feel your love is about to be lost only, seconds later, to be found again. No. Because with the onshore breeze, you always know where you are. It's constant. Cool yet convivial. Makes the time spent on the beach feel real. Right. Restorative. 

* We took this 30 minute sound photograph on Chesil Beach by Portland last April. Its the second take of the beach from a different location to episode 163 but taken shortly afterwards on the same day. Placing the Lento sound camera pointing directly out to sea, about fifteen yards from the breaking waves, the scene captures not only the steady on-shore breeze, but the deep visceral and spatial sound of the receding waves as they haul back huge quantities of the smooth, very heavy kind of shingle, that this section of Chesil Beach is made of.

184 River rilling through Miller’s Dale (sleep safe, hour-long)

Miller's Dale. Steep sided. A valley in the Derbyshire Dales with magnificent contours. High rocky outcrops. Sheer faced cliffs. Green fields plunging down to a quiet, winding river.  

It's a place where geologists go, to see the evidence of lava flows from millions of years ago. Where historians go, to marvel at Victorian viaducts and tunnels cut by hand in the 1800s. And where weekend people go to trek or cycle through open country along the disused railway lines that used to carry the trains between Manchester and London.

Miller's Dale feels cut off from the world. Alive in the moment, but somehow separated. As you wonder its winding and overgrown footpaths, you sense the valley is a place not only of restorative solitude, but a place where you are free to imagine yourself conscious in another time. Another era. Hearing the echoes of a rumbling steam train, chuffing northwards with Victorian haste. The meek baas of sheep, grazing on wet Iron Age pastures. Or the tide of the bygone sea, that the composition of the rocks shows this landscape almost unimaginably used to be.

Now the sound of water flowing is from the river. the River Wye. How steadily it runs, along the valley bottom. Open country water, that along the shallow stretches rills, pleasantly, over tumbled stones. Cool. Refreshing. Consistent. Rilling in watery melodies, if you let yourself listen for long enough.

* We left the Lento mics alone, hanging from a steeply leaning tree, to capture the spatial sound of the River Wye flowing through the night. Some planes are audible in the sky, possibly more than usual for 2am, due to a major air traffic control breakdown the night before.

183 Upland fir forest (sleep safe and ideal for headphones)

High, in the remoteness of the Cumbrian hills above Dentdale, with buzzards circling overhead, we found a fir forest. 
Tall, elegant trees, reaching up to the sky. 
All leaning, slightly, against a mild August breeze. 
The mild, long distance, cross country breeze.  

The hill was steep, so we stopped to take in the view behind. It was then we heard the forest. 
Its dense trees loomed above us. Only twenty yards away. 
Giant sails, in moving air. 
Tall. Dense. Each tree hushing not in white noise, but in noise of other shades 
Light browns. Dark browns. Dry stone greys. Twilight greens. Dark purples. 
Each undulating. And dissolving into the other. 

Nearby, we found a path. It led into the forest. 
Led into its quiet heart. 
Surrounded by hushing trees, we listened. Stock still. In total silence. 
A remote fir forest. High, in the Cumbrian hills. 

* We left the Lento mics alone to capture the undulating sound within the heart of this forest. At 29 mins a freight train can be very distantly heard as it rolls through Dent railway station farther down the moor. Or the fell, as the locals say. From ten mins in a buzzard can be heard circling directly overhead. Dentdale is at the western end of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

182 Night scapes special - August intermission 4 (sleep safe)

For this last August intermission episode we've made you a montage of *sleep safe* sound-scenes selected from four overnight recordings.

From the sea wall at Burnham-on-Crouch, looking out over panoramic tidal estuary waters by Wallasea Island. An oak tree deep within the Forest of Dean where woodcock make their roding flights. A remote fishing village harbour under empty skies in South East Scotland. To a rural wood in Suffolk where we made our first ever overnight recording.

Here are some short descriptions plus links to the episodes so you can hear them in full.

126 The seawall and the night patrolling curlews
To be a remote seawall, on a stretch of tidal estuary. To see the days and nights not as periods of time, but as slowly undulating waves. To feel the weight of water, twice rising, twice falling. To hear, the lone patrolling curlews. This is Burnham-on-Crouch around 4am, looking out across the tidal waters towards Wallasea Island 

129 Pristine quiet to early dawn 
A clearing, deep within an expansive forest, where the night air carries so little sound that only the trickling stream can be heard. The stream's sound reflects narrowly off the trunk of the tree, like the flickering light of a campfire. But when a woodcock flies by, on its roding flight, the sense of space is temporarily revealed. This segment of overnight recording we made in the Forest of Dean. It begins at around 4am when the space around the oak tree holding the microphones is still pitch dark.

140 Fishing village harbour at night 
Real quiet from the middle of the night, captured from a point above the harbour of St Abbs on the East Coast of Scotland. Car-free. Plane-free. Just the sparse and spacious cries of circling gulls over harbour waves, and the faintest hum of a fishing vessel anchored somewhere out at sea. This remote, thousand-year-old fishing village is to us a place defined by its quiet horizons and empty, plane-less skies. 

74 Night shallowing in a Suffolk Wood
It's 3am in our first ever twelve hour overnight sound landscape recording. A Wood in Dedham Vale, Suffolk. Balmy August night. the Lento mics left alone to capture the sound landscape from deep within the uninhabited woodland. they revealed dark bush crickets, chirruping the passing of time. Wind moving softly over the tree tops. the distant bell of St Mary's church, floating through the space beneath the trees, striking three. Nocturnal animals treading lightly over dry leaves. This 2017 recording opened up a whole new world to us, and inspired us to make more recordings and share them through Radio Lento. 

181 Woodland scapes special - August intermission 3

For this penultimate intermission episode, we've made you a montage of sound-scenes selected from four enchanting woodland episodes. A forest ravine high in the Derbyshire hills. Under a tree above the town of Wooler, in Northumberland. A waterfall gorge on Dartmoor. And finally, the mysterious murmurings from deep within the Forest of Dean. 

Here are the descriptions and full episode links  so you can enjoy them in full.

160 Forest ravine
This precipitous place, high in the Derbyshire hills, flows with birdsong and fresh moorland water. It's aural presence is made almost entirely of natural things. Non-human, natural phenomena. Having this piece of time uninterrupted , and from this elevation, you can watch the geese through the trees as they fly through the ravine's luscious and airy reverberations. 

141 Soft land murmuring - Wooler, Northumberland
An exposed tree, looking down upon the town of Wooler, high in the Northumberland hills. It stands amidst wide open fields, by an empty bench and an overgrown footpath. The soundview of this wide panoramic landscape changes with the wind. Tawny treetop owls. Sheep. Cawing rooks. Flocks of chattering jackdaws. Wood pigeons, cooing comfortably from their lofty roosts. Then as the wind gathers strength, the soundview shifts to the interior space within the tree holding the microphones. 

162 Waterfall gorge on Dartmoor 
you've made it up, to the Dartmoor gorge. Thick untouched forest, and a rushing torrent, cascading down a rocky, precipitous gorge. Getting here, up and up, along a rocky path through endless trees, feels like a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage to a rarified place, that's lit through day and through night, by brilliant, refreshing, acoustic sunshine. (Since we took this sound photograph we've learned that regions of Woodland on Dartmoor have been designated as temperate rain forest.)

122 Forest bathing in the cathedral of trees
A passage of early evening time, captured by the Lento mics recording alone, from deep in the Forest of Dean. 
They hear wide spatial echoes. Woodland birds singing free of interference. Rich, layered murmurings. And air, moving gently through the high tree tops, of this ancient forest. We think of our sound recordings as sound photographs. Spatial sound scenes taken from one fixed position, over time. Our goal is to share the aural view of a place, in a spatial high detail way that lets you experience the true authentic feel of what it is really like to be there.  An aural reality of being somewhere else.

180 Coastal scapes special - August intermission 2

We're taking an intermission during August. Rather than disappearing, we're made you a montage of sound-feels selected from previous episodes. This week's theme is coastal.

Listen to four lovely clips of coastal scapes we've captured. Take a tour from Tenby in South Wales, Coldingham Sands in South East Scotland, and Nothe Fort on the Jurassic coast of England.

Here are the descriptions and full episode links  so you can enjoy them in full.

174 Where cool woodland meets the summer sea 
At the far end of the long sandy beach at Tenby there's an area of cool, shady woodland. From the distance and under hot summer sunshine, it looks idyllic. Inviting. Under the trees the hot sunshine air is cooler. Laden with sweet musty smells and sappy perfumes. The birds are singing. Their sound reflecting between the trees. Melding with the washing waves. 
This place is like a temperate greenhouse. A naturally reverberant space. Perfect, to set down, forget about doing anything, and just listen for a while. 

178 Waves of the intertidal zone 
It's late and you're out. in solitude, For an evening walk, on a wide open beach. Tenby beach in South Wales. Here, is white noise solitude. You scrunch over flat corrugated sand towards the shallowing waves. Then wade in. Immersed. Ankle deep and paddling. White noise is everywhere. Waves, are everywhere. Racing. Washing over each other. Left to right. Right to left. Face on. And under. Rushing away, behind you. Tiny bubbles. Sparkling. Shallowing. And dissolving, into fizz. 

150 Looking down on Coldingham Sands 
A bench. Perfectly perched, by the sandy steps that lead steeply down onto Coldingham Sands. Perfectly perched with a sound-view so wide, and angle just right, to hear the incoming waves as they break over outcrops of craggy, elephant-sized rocks. It's a bright August day, and the sun is mistily lighting up the sea, the rocky cliffs, and the plunging, richly vegetated slopes. This place, on the East Coast of Scotland, is special. It's a landscape under a genuinely quiet sky. A sky free of human-made noise, where the detail and quality of natural sound can reach the ear drums intact. 

176 Early morning below Nothe Fort
A smooth, sunrise sea, heard from a tree, growing up out of a bundle of boulders close to the water's edge. It's early April, and just after daybreak. The Lento kit is in the tree, capturing the wide spatial quiet of this place with nobody about, right beside Nothe Fort in Weymouth on the south coast of England. Ahead, looking south, the sea. West is Portland. East is Weymouth, then Durdle Door, near to Lulworth Cove. In this little settled spot, and from far left of scene, the sea seems to be breathing, softly, as it sweeps the shingle at the foot of the fort's huge parapet wall. Perhaps it's still asleep. Has it not heard the blackbird? Has it not heard the wren? Or the garden warbler? Maybe it hears them, from within a dream. 

179 Rain scapes special - August intermission 1 (sleep safe)

We're taking an intermission during August. Rather than disappearing, we're sharing a different type of episode, each with a theme, using some of the best bits from previous episodes. This week's theme is rain. 

Here are four glorious rain scapes. Travel with the rain as it falls, on a wide open coastal landscape, a walled garden in London, and on high moorland woods in Derbyshire.

Here are the descriptions and episode links  so you can listen to them in full. 

146 Fresh air along the Creel Path
The Creel Path has been trodden by fisherman on their way to work from Coldingham to the harbour at St Abbs in Scotland, for a thousand years. It's a landscape whose geography leaves it exposed to everything that the sky can bring. By locating our mics within the natural shelter of a tree, and letting them record alone for twelve hours, we were able to capture the full width, depth and range of this place and its unique soundscape. 

128 Persistent rain
Heavily, this winter rain falls. Persistent. Cold. Wet. Refreshing. In waves. In sprinkling flurries. Over time. Onto the huge tarpaulin stretched across the yard. Each drop's long downward journey is both completed, and revealed, in one tiny moment. Is this just plain old rain? Listen in, especially through a pair of headphones, and layer upon layer of spatially detailed rich textured sound will to you become revealed. 

167 An hour under moorland trees 
There is nothing and no one about.  You. Here. Hidden. Up in the Derbyshire hills. Sat, on dry leaf litter, lent against a gently slanted tree trunk. Listening. Just an hour. Under moorland trees. An hour to listen, to the weather, the flurries of rain And the steady ever-changing wind. 

156 Sheltered under night rain 
The city sleeps, under a dark impenetrable sky. In one garden, sheltered under a wide tarpaulin, microphones are recording. Alone. On top of a tripod, and standing, as high as a person. Listening. The tarpaulin, is to them a canvas. It lets them see the rain. In all its spatial detail. A transcriber. A taught thin surface, that catches each raindrop, and changes its collided imprint into crisp edged, spatial  sound.

178 Waves of the intertidal zone (Don’t forget Lento’s built for headphones!)

A shadow grey rock, the size of a stranded ship. Radiating heat, remembered from the midday sun. Around it, rock pools, and smooth curving shapes. Like sleeping seals. You're out. Alone. For a late evening walk. Overhead, and behind, the sky is a deep, deepening blue. An end-of-day blue. But to your right, on the low west horizon, it's still blazing bright. 

This place, this wide open beach, is white noise solitude. All around, empty space. Empty space and sea air breezes. Sea air breezes, and some people. Happy cries, and beach ball thumps. 

You walk. Scrunch sand between your toes. You swing your legs towards the sea. Head towards the intertidal zone. Stepping on hard ruttled sand. Over furrows of stranded water. For as far as the eye can see. Corrugated land. Low tide land. Shaped into longitudinal lines by the withdrawing waves. 

Right ahead, bright white noise. And gulls. Just landed on the wetted sand. Rapidly stamping their little webbed feet, to bring up the morsels. A rush. Of cold fizzing sparkling rippling water. Breaks suddenly over your feet. Breaks, and splashes up your ankles. Stops you in your tracks. Swirls and foams and flattens and shallows, all around you. Fills the air with watery sound. Like shimmering blue, shoreline silk. 

Now you're in, and immersed. Ankle deep and paddling. White noise is everywhere. Waves, are everywhere. Racing. Washing over each other. Left to right. Right to left. Face on. And under. Rushing away, behind you. Tiny bubbles. Sparkling. Shallowing. And dissolving, into fizz. Each one, each wave, adding one more corrugation, on the wide intertidal sand. 

* This sound photograph of Tenby beach is first try of something new for Lento. We recorded it dynamically, as we walked, in one unbroken 30 minute take. Angling and panning the Lento kit, holding still on wide panoramic views, then panning down almost to touch the water for close-up views of the sparkling bubbles, then gently sliding sideways to chase waves as they race to the shore, as with a film camera. We wanted it to be a kind of sound film.

If you can't make it to the beach this month we hope you can enjoy this intertidal sound walk, until you can. 

177 Summer meadow woodland edge

You find yourself, suddenly out. On the other side of the wood.
The edge, of a wide open empty field. A meadow.
Tall elegant trees, given way to a high, bright sky. 

Standing silently. You can feel the heart of the forest behind you. Hear its echoes. Its leaves near and far, rustling. How one tree creaks. How banks of soft summer air move spatially across the treetops. How trains, passing distantly through the forest, make sound like silver wind. 

In front, is open grassland. Fragrant. Home to large populations of butterflies. And that sings, with the sound of stridulating crickets. Hundreds. Thousands. All cricketing, under this warm noon day sun. 

This meadow. These slowly swaying trees. This breeze, in the leaves and grasses. This feeling, of being so near to the cool green heart of this forest. And up, at the sky. And up, at the sun. And the shifting clouds. And the planes, flying from time to time. Flying, from cloud to cloud.

* We travelled into Hertfordshire (by train and on foot of course) to take this sound photograph from as near as possible to the Clinton Baker Pinetum one lunchtime last week. It's a fascinating place, rich for forest bathing, first planted in 1767. We want to take some more sound photographs that capture the range of tree species inside the pinetum if and when we can get permission.

176 Early morning below Nothe Fort

The sound-scene is of a smooth, sunrise sea, heard from a tree, growing up out of a bundle of boulders, close to the water's edge. It's early April, and just after daybreak. The Lento kit is in the tree, capturing the wide spatial quiet of this place with nobody about, right beside Nothe Fort in Weymouth on the south coast of England. Ahead, looking south, the sea. West is Portland. East is Weymouth, then Durdle Door, near to Lulworth Cove. 

Here, in this little settled spot, and from far left of scene, the sea seems to be breathing, softly, as it sweeps the shingle at the foot of the fort's huge parapet wall. Perhaps it's still asleep. Has it not heard the blackbird? Has it not heard the wren? Or the garden warbler? Maybe. In a dream.  

From right of scene, where the swell's near and breaking over the boulders, the sea's very much awake. Awake, and moving. Rising, falling. Gently washing the sunlit sharp rocks, in slow, circling motions.

High above, in wide circles, are the seagulls. Calling brightly to each other in the first light air. And some stray crows. And ducks. And something else. Something deep. Something that hums. It is, almost musical. Not animal. Or geomorphological. Too powerful, too omnipotent, for that. It's the kind of sound that isn't in the air. But is the air.

A ship. And its low humming engine. Moving. Very gradually. Across the horizon. Like a far drifting cloud.

175 Night train sleeper (sleep safe)

 

The cabin, is compact, in every way. Every inch, accounted for. Every component, slotted in, perfectly. And, with full rucksack and boots and spare boots and string bag, a bit of a squash to get in too. Once you're in though, once you've sorted, and stowed, and made things neat, any claustrophobic feelings will just, well, have magically evaporated. In some curious way, these cabins can somehow, surreptitiously, expand. 

As the train pulls out of Penzance station, you begin to hear the rumble. A sturdy, rounded edges sort of rumble, a cacophony, of gently juddering low frequency vibrations, that'll sway about beneath you and your bunk as the miles pass, and gradually become your friend. The sound is, dark, and velvety, and when combined with the physical sensation of being horizontal on a cotton soft pillow, deliciously soporific. 

And there are the other swaying sounds. The tiny creaky movements of all the cabin's fittings. The muffled clunks and clicks, as someone sleepily feels for the night light switch. And The carriage's squeaky suspension,  that in your dreams can be a swinging sign, outside some windswept Out West saloon. Howdy friend, welcome to the Old Railroad. Care to come in?

But best of all, to us, perhaps to all who slumber their nocturnal way cross country aboard the Night Riviera, is the ever-present, ever fluctuating, omnipotent hum of the locomotive. The giant sized engine, the dynamo, the journey's conductor, that valiantly leads the way into the night, and makes the whole thing happen. And keeps it happening, warmly, and reassuringly, over hundreds and hundreds of dark, dark miles.

* This spatial sound photograph, an unbroken sixty minute segment of the journey from Penzance to London Paddington, was taken from within the cabin beside the bunk. It will to those trigger deep and we hope blissful memories of travelling through the night on a sleeper train. If you haven't done this yet, we hope this recording conveys at least some of the unique and soporific sound experience of a night train sleeper.

174 Where cool woodland meets the summer sea (an afternoon snooze)

At the far end of the long sandy beach at Tenby there's an area of cool, shady woodland. From the distance and under hot summer sunshine, it looks idyllic. Inviting. A shady promontory on the horizon that curves and blurs down into the sea. 

The best way to get there we think, is by shanks pony. Walk, as slow as you like. Go the full length of the beach. Pass the kids playing and the running dogs who couldn't be happier. The picnicing families, and the lone beach ball, waiting patiently to be collected.  Steer yourself between the scattered seaweeds of the strandline, and the breaking waves of the shore. Just keep going, but don't forget to stop too. There'll be plenty of bits of flotsam and jetsam that need to be checked along the way. And the odd motorboat, to watch, far out on the water, steadily bouncing over the swell. 

As you approach the headland, the trees loom. They are towering things. High, with broad boughs that stretch like green sails overhead. Some will be swaying in the onshore breeze. The beach ends here, so step off the soft sand and up and over the ridge of craggy rocks, to the wooden steps leading to the woodland path. A sandy adventure, that leads steep up, under the trees.

Climb. Feel how the air cools. Becomes laden with sweet musty smells and sappy perfumes. Hear how the sound changes. How the birds are singing. How their sound reflects between the trees, and combines with the washing waves. The sea enters the lowest footings of the forest along natural inlets that are lined with gnarled and exposed roots. 

This place is like a temperate greenhouse. A naturally reverberant space, shaped, regulated, and defined, by the sea and the trees. Such a perfect place, to set down, forget about doing anything, and just listen for a while. 

* Tree canopies can divert over 60% of the sun's heat and so make you cool through a process called evapotranspiration. Source: bbc.co.uk 

173 Deep forest time (long & sleep safe)

This is a blend of intimate and wide spatial quiet, captured as it happened from beside an old oak tree, in a remote spot in the Forest of Dean. The time is 3:30am and the microphones are recording alone. It's 90 minutes to dawn.

What we hear in the foreground are the intimate textures of a trickling stream, that's completely hidden from view under thickly tangled vines. A hedgehog is foraging through the dense leaf litter, making delicate scratchy sounds like a moving pin cushion. The space immediately around the oak tree holding the microphones is sloping, and partly cleared of trees but only for about ten yards or so. The forest stretches all around for miles.  

As time passes, high planes overfly the woodland, in soft rumbly arcs. A car, speeding along the country road that bisects this area of woodland, makes white noise like a breeze in the trees. At 36 minutes, sliding from far left to far right of scene, a male woodcock flies through the clearing, making a strange qwacking type call that ends in a bright squeak. This call is known as a roding flight and it returns quite a few times. 

As dawn approaches, the echoing hoots of tawny owls reverberates sonorously across the huge expanse of the forest. Dogs distantly bark, and farm animals can sometimes be heard. Towards the end, a song thrush begins to sing, short melodious notes in repeated phrases. Dawn is near. 

172 Heatwave thunderstorm that washes and cools (panoramic, made for headphones)

Have the back streets faded to silent?
Have the dogs begun to bark?
Quick, get in, there's a storm coming.

The front room chair with the cushion that isn't supposed to be outside in the yard but is, because it's been so hot of late, is that in?
And the pile of winter boots left out to air next to it?
And those newly potted plants that can't cope with heavy rain yet? 
Get them all in, the air's gone electric.

Thick thunder rolls, across a strange coloured sky.
Brings rain that's in such a hurry to get down it all comes down at once.
Rivulets of sparkling water, flowing off the tarpaulin. Pouring onto the parched concrete yard.
Wafting smells of petrichor.

Heatwave storms plough a deep furrow through the sky as they pass, that take a while for the atmosphere to settle.
It's the dramatically changing sound scenes such storms create that make them so rewarding to listen to.
The sheer intensity of an unbridled deluge.
The panoramic spatial thunder created as the lightning bolts explode vast volumes of air.
And the relief, after the storm has passed, expressed through the countless dripping drops of fallen water, from all the surfaces on which it fell.
Three movements. Three acts. Of a heatwave storm.

A powerful storm is like a piece of theatre.
It bends and redefines the meaning of time.
It suspends your belief in what is normal and your perspective on reality.
And when it's over, it leaves you feeling physically different to how you were before.
Different, and better.

* The Lento mics captured this storm as it passed over Hackney in North East London in early afternoon last week, after a long period of exceptionally hot and dry weather. The location is the back garden of a small terrace house. Temperature prior to the storm was 30 degrees. Humidity was 39%. A few months ago the humidity was typically between 80% and 90%.

171 Sunrise birds in sea washed air

Sunrise over Tenby. Blue sky. Scudding clouds. 5am, and nobody about, except for the birds in the murmuring air of a seaside town.

This sound photograph, captured from behind the descending houses on St Johns Hill in Tenby, is spatial, and composed by chance with balanced foreground and background layers. A blackbird right of centre. Another blackbird, mid-distance and left of centre. Far distance, ranging 90 degree left to 90 degree right, wrens and other birds. The white noise of the beach can be heard reflecting slightly to right of centre, off the high wall of a large sided building beyond. Circling seagulls often pass over too, and light up through sound the empty airspace above. 

This episode follows on from last week's 'Night murmuring in Tenby'. The daylight has come, but still rocking slightly in the breeze, is next door's rusted garden gate. 

* Tenby is another location we've found that has quiet horizons. There was almost no aircraft noise in the four days we spent there. Quiet horizons we think promote a deeper sense of wellbeing and allow the natural world to be perceived properly. There is some wind noise in this episode due to coastal conditions, but because of the minimal human-made noise, the murmuration of the sea reflected off the nearby buildings is clearly audible even though it is on the other side of the hill.